The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 20, 1999
Filed:
Dec. 29, 1995
Daniel J Mayer, Warren, NJ (US);
AT&T Corp, Middletown, NJ (US);
Abstract
A management system and method for use with on-demand cable programming, wherein a customer telephones a cable supplier and requests that a particular video program be played. The management system uses a plurality of video sources, wherein each of the video sources is capable of playing the requested video program. A telephone switch system and routing table are used to route incoming customer requests directly to the interface in control of the video source serving the region from where the request originated. The volume of requests received from each customer region serviced by the cable supplier is evaluated. If the volume of customer requests surpasses a threshold level, then additional video sources are added to the cable network by the cable supplier. The cable head ends that service the various customer regions are then reassigned among the new number of video sources so that the volume of requests is generally evenly divided among the multiple video sources, concurrently, the routing table is changed to maintain the geographic association between customer regions and each appropriate video source.